More than 30,000 bottles of wine, in dozens of wine collections valued at more than $5m, have gone missing in the New South Wales Hunter Valley.
Police say the wine was being held under agreement by Wine Investment Services Pty Ltd until it went into receivership three years ago.
Business assets were seized at the time but the wine collections were not surrendered and police suspect they may have been stolen.
“There’s in excess of 30,000 bottles of wine missing, you just can’t move 30,000 bottles of wine in a vehicle or in a small ute,” NSW Police acting superintendent Matthew Craft told the Daily Telegraph.
“You would need a large truck, it would take a long time, it would be very heavy. We believe there are certain people out there who would have seen something.”
Detectives would like to speak with anyone who has been approached by people selling collectable drops including Penfolds Grange, varieties of Henschke, Torbreck and Chris Ringland/Three Rivers.
Penfolds Grange Hermitage is worth between $600 and $2,000 a tube, depending on the vintage, with bottles dating back to the 1950s worth between $3,000 and $60,000.
The NSW Police fraud and cybercrime squad seized a cache of documents and computer hard drives in a search of a storage unit in Newcastle in March, but are yet to locate the wine.
It is understood the missing wine is in addition to a number of lots sold by receivers through online action site Grays last year.
Craft said the wine had been stored at a number of locations around the Hunter Valley and was owned by up to 300 people who had paid Wine Investment Services to store it in climate-controlled environments.
The idea is that correctly stored wine will better retain its value and can then be traded as a commodity.
According to Cult Wines, a UK-based wine investment company, fine wine had a compound growth rate of between 10 and 20% per annum, but only 1% of wine produced was “investment grade”.
The receivers sold a number of investment wine lots through online action site Grays last year.
